Ask HN: How long does it take to find a job? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How long does it take to find a job?

10 pointsAkcium17 comments

I know it highly depends.

It depends on the country, technology, and current situation.

But let's assume an average job position

Middle Frontend Developer. Remote job. You can share your experience whether you use React, Vue, or other frameworks.

I'm asking for a purpose. My GF is looking for a job as a VueJS developer. And she can't find a decent job. But the period of time she's been looking for a job is less than a month.

In my understanding, it's totally fine and you can spend a few months before you find your "dream job".

Also, RUMOUR HAS IT that there is a huuuge decrease in demand in the IT sector. Which I personally don't believe (or even if it is, it's not that significant).

What is your experience here?

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You talk about a "job", a "decent job" and then your "dream job". There's a huge difference among all of them. I don't think I have found my "dream job" yet (and I have being working in the industry over 10 years). To find a normal "job", I think it depends on how many CVs I send (the more I send, the faster I'll get an "accepted"). Now a "decent job" takes both time on your side (investigating companies, their social media, blogs, etc.) and preparation (chances are that "decent jobs" come from "decent companies" and they have some sort of tech interview that's not easy to pass).

> Also, RUMOUR HAS IT that there is a huuuge decrease in demand in the IT sector. Which I personally don't believe (or even if it is, it's not that significant).

There was, and there is a huge demand in the IT sector. What happened during covid (even more demand) or after it (lay-offs) is just a tiny variation. The IT industry has still a huge demand for labor and it will only increase in the future (because of the demand itself, and because first-world countries are not producing people as fast as before (read Population ageing)).

Now if you or your gf is looking for a job at faang, then that's different. Faang doesn't represent the IT sector, so it has its own rules and all.

Diversifying won't hurt her. Don't solely focus on VueJS. As others have said, pick up other JavaScript frameworks, and even other languages used in web dev such as Python (Flask, Django are the two most dominant web frameworks). Look at learning SQL (PostgreSQL is free and open source); build a portfolio of small websites using VueJS, or Python, with an SQL backend.

Even consider non-web development. Nim (https://nim-lang.org/) is a compiled language similar to Python that cross-compiles into C, C++, Objective-C and JavaScript. Nim could be used as a back-end for VueJS.

Being an all-rounder will help expose opportunities to her that otherwise would be out of reach for just a front-end developer.

Also encourage her to combine her other passions with her profession. If she enjoys gardening or even motorsports, why not build full web solutions that solve problems in those domains. Fields that have little IT understanding are really good candidates for this.

I had an IT background but was solely working in emergency management operations (as I was employed as a emergency management officer, a career which I love). I also taught myself GIS (which is used heavily in the organisation). Had I not had my IT background (and software dev. experience) I would've completely missed the data analysis positions at my employer. I was often overlooked for promotion in the emergency management stream (as a female in an very male dominated organisation), so I changed career paths slightly.

I interviewed for a data engineer position in my organisation, and ended up being employed as a spatial engineer instead (leaning on my 'self-taught stuff; spatial is really just data, with a couple of extra data types that need special love and attention and some obscure math). The inadvertent benefit of having also worked as a emergency management officer, and now as a spatial engineer is that I understand the organisation's problem domain, and the type of stuff senior officers are looking for, extremely well. I'm now the go-to person for pretty much any complex spatial problem that needs a solution urgently.

I'm enjoying combining my technical IT stuff with the emergency management stuff, I didn't think a dream job would get any better.

Tip for your GF: always have another "card up your sleeve" when searching for opportunities. If you solely focus on the option at hand its easy to be disappointed when it doesn't work out and to dwell on it. But if you already sent out another application you have something to move on to.

It took me 8 months to find a job as a frontend engineer at the top of the market in 2021 with 15 YOE. I was interviewing every day, and most of them were positive, but they didn't bite. At the end of the day, you never know why someone doesn't hire you. It worked out fine for me though. I ended up in a FAANG company. Interviewing helped me build the skills I needed to pass the interview.

That's crazy! I mean, how many interviews did you have?!

But you know, if you have enough money to live for that time, I think it's totally fine.

Yet, impressive

It's not a long amount of time considering the rewards. Many of the second or third round "interviews" were actually mini projects that took weeks of effort, as well.

Tell her to brush up her skills to go beyond just VueJS and get some React, Ember, Angular, Node, and Express. If she doesn't just limit herself to one, she stands a better chance of being seen over the competition.

She might also fair well to post on Craigslist or other sites offering to redesign/develop websites in Vue.js.

The only problem with learning new stuff is that learning != having experience.

E.g., she can learn react, make a to-do app, but it's not a real commercial experience, and in most cases it won't be counted.

However, I agree with you.

The problem is that she needs money right now, due to mortgage and stuff, I would maybe learn something additional like a backend framework, so that she can say "I'm good at Vue, have experience, but I also know next.js, made my own pet project with it"

something like that

First time I heard about... craigslist? Hm

I think it is the fact that you bring "knowledge of" to the table more so than having a portfolio with it. As far as Craigslist, it is the easiest place to either list services or find companies looking for a freelancer. She could also go to local businesses and see if they need a website.

As much as she wants to remain in development, there is also the alternative route... doing something else, especially if things are due right now.

The market is going to be tough right now. Lots of laid off employees looking for work.

It will definitely take her longer than a month.

It might also depend on the salary. E.g. in Russia there are quite a lot of positions, but the salary rate is poor.

I would say "if you want to get a decent salary, then keep on searching". Or just a get bad position/salary.

Time is a terrible metric for judging how hard a job search is. "I've been looking for a job for a year" says almost nothing. For all we know you applied to a job every other week. My first offer came in at 4 weeks of job searching. That sounds good until I add that during that time I sent out 500 applications.

Even companies that are actively hiring seem to be in no rush to fill positions and are being extremely selective. Probably due to financial/macro econ concerns more than anything else, but still no less frustrating. It will take months, not weeks to find a fit anywhere at the moment.

I was laid off in 2016 and it took me four months to find another job. It was a month from the first screening interview to my offer date with the company that eventually hired me. I think of the process as taking months and not weeks.

Current situation for me is not depends on time spent, it depends on count of companies I need bid. This almost constant in my region.

The remote part is the tricky bit. She's competing against the whole country and not just your local area.

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